Welcome to Learner Music & Publishing

Thank you for visiting! In 2010, I released "Would You Like to Be A Mermaid?" - an album of 12 upbeat, harmony-filled songs for and about kids. Since then I've written and recorded dozens of songs, and created six musicals, two of which were staged at the D.C. Capital Fringe Festival (picture, LIFE: A Comic Opera), and others that have been produced as staged readings by DC theater companies. Please check out my music in the "music/vids" tab above. Thank you for taking a look and listen.

Thrilled to be selected for Taphouse Theater's Shelter in Place virtual new play festival. My 10-minute opera, Get Me Home, played April 19, 2020. Staring Brian Hathaway, Antony J. Ortega, Elisa Danielle James and Caroline Rivera. Directed by Sienna Riehle and Benjamin Brown. See video interview below after premiere.

July 8, 2019, Whisk &amp; Quill: ...Handy conceived the show and Learner wrote all eight of the period songs giving the cast free rein to interpret his music and context resulting in a vibrant collaboration and a convincing freshness to his material. Both Monroe and Williams have strong, soulful voices and hot chops that put this one on your must-see Fringe list...

July 10, 2017, DC Metro Theater Arts: ...LIFE is appropriately named, showing us not just a glimpse of a story, but the way that one person’s story grows into the next’s. And it is brought to life with humor, with wit, and with great energy by this talented cast.

July 10, 2917, The Zebra Theater Review: ...The genius of what Neal Learner has achieved here is combining the various styles of music, the complex rhythms and harmonies, and pairing them with beautiful, interesting voices. He has also kept the story line simple, and for the most part all the characters behave in pretty much normal ways, just going about their unremarkable lives. However, through the magic of Learner’s music and brilliant lyrics...we become caught up in their everyday lives and hope for…

May 18, 2016 DC Metro Theater Arts Review: "...Thank you to Monumental Theatre Company for producing the reading of this impressive new material, and thank you to the creator of the musical, Neal Learner, for highlighting the beauty in the simplicity of this thing called life. I look forward to seeing what comes next for the production and for Monumental."

Alexandria, Va., May 9, 2016 – The Washington, D.C.,-based Monumental Theatre Co. will perform the world premiere of local playwright Neal Learner’s musical “Life: A Comic Opera in Three Short Acts” in a staged reading this Sunday.

The performance is part of Monumental’s New Work Series and takes place at 7 p.m., Sunday, May 15th at The Catholic University of America's Music School. The university is located at 620 Michigan Ave., NE, Washington, D.C., 20064, and The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music is…

2011 - Neal Learner releases CD "Would You Like to Be A Mermaid?" The first track, Secret of Life, explores questions of what makes life good and real, while Eat Good Food offers some sound advice that anyone might want to follow. Rock & Roll Girl paints a lively musical portrait of Neal’s younger daughter Nina (age 9), and Me in You is a touching personal note to his older daughter Nadia (age 10). Spring is about the simple joys of this wonderful season, and My Kind of Heaven captures the joys of being…

The kids are alrightNeal Learner Takes Children’s Music Just Seriously Enough

By David Sachs

When it comes to music, Del Ray resident Neal Learner doesn’t believe kids should be sold short. So he released “Would You Like to Be A Mermaid?” earlier this year, the first album from Neal Learner and the Del Ray Phantom Orchestra.

It’s eclectic, ambling between bluegrass, rock and lullabies. If you listen to it, like it and you’re over 20, that’s OK, Learner says. Some songs edge close to tracks heard on major…